The second scenario was our third game of the CoC All American campaign. After breaking through on the second attempt (read about it here) the Germans now faced very difficult to hit US paratroopers in hard cover buildings. In order to increase the to-hit chances I selected an 8cm mortar battery with forward observer plus an extra senior leader for the Germans and one tank required by the scenario.
Not a bad position for the jump-off points, but it wasn't going to be easy to capture the US jump-off point furthest to the right, which was required for the Germans to win this scenario.
Obergefreiter Siska and his squad, accompagnied by Unterfeldwebel Wepper and the forward observer deploy behind the farmhouse, intending to move inside to find a good spot for the forward observer.
The US mortar team deployed and opened fire on the Germans, but rolled three 1s! Not only missing the target but also out of ammo for the rest of the game.
While sgt. Reno and his paratroopers deploy in and around the house and sgt "Bronco Bill" Walters' squad deploys near the church, Unterfeldwebel Wepper and his group move into the house and take up positions.
Obergefreiter Wiegand and his squad have deployed out of sight in the barn and now move swiftly across the courtyard towards the shed.
The German forward observer now requests a mortar barrage (without ranging shot). It deviates quite a lot from the aiming point and only lands on the unfortunate US mortarmen.
Being on overwatch, the paratroopers immediately respond and kill the German forward observer!
This is a setback for the Germans. The useless barrage can't be moved and the two German squads are both inside buildings with limited LOS to the paratrooper positions.
The panzer III arrives and starts pounding the Americans, causing casualties from a distance where it can't be ambushed by the US bazooka teams.
The game is now in a kind of stalemate: The Germans are stuck in the buildings with unfavourable fields of fire and are sure to be cut to ribbons when they advance. The paratroopers can only fire at the tank with their LMG or try to hit it from across the table with a bazooka.
For me playing the Germans, the smart thing to do would have been probably to keep firing HE with the panzer at the paratroopers defending the church untill their defence collapsed. Since that would probably have taken most of the evening and make for a boring game, I decided to take the risk and try and move up the panzer and use it as a mobile piece of cover. Meanwhile Unterfeldwebel Wepper would direct his men to fire from the only window overlooking the US positions at the church.
This worked out well initially (apart from Wepper's entire squad being killed piece by piece by accurate paratrooper fire). Sgt Walters' squad (now joined by Lt Garret) was taking casualties and a full chain of command dice allowed a German jump-off point to be brought forward so that the remaining German squad could deploy behind it.
But of course the inevitable happened: My opponent uses a full chain of command dice to ambush the panzer with his bazooka team.
Four net hits!
US platoon sergeant "The Kid" Bonney takes part of the squad at the house and rushes towards the thin US line of defense at the church.
It's all or nothing now for the Germans (actually it wasn't. More on that later). I decided to deploy Unterfeldwebel Tampert with Obergefreiter Hahne and his squad and use a double phase, an interrupt chain of command dice together with the German Handgranaten national characteristic to assault and overwhelm the remaining US troops at the church before Bonney and his reinforcements could reach them.
A rather disappointing number of handgranaten reached the paratrooper lines however, and those that did caused little harm. Also the dice gods were not supporting the Germans in this assault. Wepper, Hahne and all of their men were killed.
The paratroopers lost 1 man....
The only German squad left on the table retreated, but was dispersed. A sound victory for the Americans!
Not all or nothing for the Germans:
I was under the assumption that if the Germans lost this game then the campaign would be lost because they had then lost two times. The campaign victory conditions however state that the Germans must win scenario 4 by campaign turn 6. So victory is still possible, but the Germans would have to win scenario 3 and 4 and the second attempt at scenario 2. Unlikely? Perhaps, but you never know.
Because of the large amount of casualties the Germans will have to fight the next encounter with a -2 on their force morale row, which will make it even more difficult to win.
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